


The Ghost of Winterfell

by darkstark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Blood and Violence, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Murder Mystery, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Supernatural Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-04 02:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10981857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkstark/pseuds/darkstark
Summary: First, there was the accident up at Winterfell farm. Then there was the murder.The three Baratheon brothers all have to do their duty - Renly the doctor to tend to the living. Robert the magistrate to find the culprits of the murder. And Stannis the undertaker to bury the dead.But with no clues and no suspects for the murder and one tragedy after another befalling the Stark family, people start suspecting that evil spirits are at work in Winterfell. Amidst the general paranoia, Stannis finds himself falling for Sansa, the eldest daughter of the Starks.





	1. Cherry wood and oak

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally conceived as a one-shot with a very different tone, but as I wrote I kept adding things and it turned into this weird mesh of murder mystery romance.  
> The time and place is not mentioned, but I vaguely imagined it as a 1850s U.S. territories kind of setting.  
> It will be a few chapters long and I've written 90% of it, so I promise I'll be posting regularly - probably every three days or so.  
> I hope you like it! :)

She came in heavy rainfall, banging desperately on his door. He opened it in a hurry. He didn’t know who it was, but he knew the reason wasn’t a good one. People only came to him with foul news. She stood in darkness – it was only early in the evening, but the heavy clouds had turned the day into night. She was soaking wet, her long red hair dripping, and the hem of her dress dipped in mud.

He recognised her immediately, though he very rarely saw her in town. Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of the Stark family up in the Winterfell farm.

“Is this the doctor’s?” she asked urgently, not bothering to greet him. Her one hand was trying to wipe water from her face, the other clutching the bridles of her massive draft horse.

“This is the funeral parlour. The doctor is two doors down” he corrected her.

“But the sign says Baratheon” she said, a little lost even in her urgency.

“I am the doctor’s brother” he explained. He was not surprised by her mistake. He had ordered a new sign for his business after the old one fell down, and currently all there was left was his name on the front door. With the rain falling like a heavy curtain and the sky dark as night, he couldn’t blame Sansa Stark for mistaking his establishment for that of his brother’s.

“Well perhaps you should come too. Gods help us, we might need your services”

She said that in a flat tone, but underneath, he thought he could recognize the still contained fear and panic.

She must be in shock, he thought as he put on his coat and closed the door behind him, and only then remembered to ask her what had happened.

“My brother Bran, he fell off the barn roof. He hit his head and his back, he’s really bad” she explained as they trudged in the mud, hurrying to the doctor’s house. “He needs a doctor”

“And they sent you?” Stannis asked in utter surprise, looking at the tall, yet delicate girl shivering in the rain.

“Father is away. Mother won’t leave Bran’s side, and she has such a fright that she won’t let Robb go away either. Arya and Rickon are too young. So it had to be me” Sansa replied flatly.

They reached his brother’s house, and Sansa started banging on his door immediately. Renly came out after a couple of minutes, and Sansa immediately started explaining to him what had happened.

“Let me get my bag” Renly said, his handsome face pale.

“I’ll go fetch horses” Stannis said.

“Why are you here?” Renly shouted to be heard over the howling wind and heavy rainfall. They were riding as fast as they could to the Stark farm, Sansa leading the way on her draft horse.

“She said I might be needed” Stannis replied, also shouting. He knew Sansa wouldn’t hear their conversation. The howling wind was snatching their words, carrying them away from her ears.

“May the Stranger guide us” Renly said, paling slightly more. Not for the first time, Stannis wondered how his sensitive brother first decided, and then succeeded in becoming a doctor.

They found the house in unrest, the one maid the family employed running around like a headless chicken. Stannis and Renly followed Sansa to the upper floor, where the bedchambers presumably were, dirtying the floor with mud. Nobody seemed to notice. The boy was in the master bedroom, laid out on his parents’ bed. His mother and older brother were by his side, pale and frantic.

Catelyn Stark’s eyes flickered with something like hope and gratitude when Sansa stepped aside to let the doctor in.

“Thank the gods!” she said in a tremulous voice, but then the light in her eyes dimmed, and hostile darkness took its place when she saw Stannis.

“What is _he_ doing here? What did you bring him for? Have you no faith in your brother? Do you wish his death?” she hissed at Sansa, who now looked scared.

“Miss Stark came to my door by mistake. I only thought it proper to accompany your daughter and my brother the doctor for safety precautions – the storm is quite dangerous” Stannis said hastily. There was no need to tell Catelyn of Sansa’s thinking, even though to him it had made perfect sense.

“Out! Out!” Catelyn spat, and turned back to her unconscious son. Renly was already rummaging in his bag.

Stannis left the room quietly, but not before catching an apologetic look from Sansa. He retraced their muddy steps to the ground floor, and then he found his way to the empty kitchen. He sat in front of the fire, hoping to get dry before he caught a cold. As much as he trusted Renly’s skills, he’d rather not need his services in the first place.

The Stark boy didn’t make it through the night, despite Renly’s best efforts. Stannis knew when it happened – the house suddenly grew extremely quiet, as if everyone were simultaneously holding their breaths. And then they all let them out at once, in a long, chilling wail.

It was strange for him to be in the house during a death, during the first realization of that finality. Usually he arrived later, when reality had sank in, and people were composed enough to discuss practicalities with him. But now he was in the eye of the storm, enduring Catelyn Stark’s soul-piercing wails, and feeling like a vulture ready to prey on the family on their worst moment, even though it was Sansa who had asked him to come.

He stayed in the kitchen, trying to remain unnoticed. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but suddenly Catelyn’s wails stopped, and a little later Renly appeared in the kitchen, looking haggard.

“She passed out” he said, clearly meaning Catelyn. “The boy, Robb, helped me move her to another room. He’s with her now. If I’m honest, it’s better if she sleeps a little. But he said… he said you could come and do your job” Renly said in a low voice. He seemed completely drained.

“Was there any…?” Stannis started.

“No. The boy was lost the moment he slipped from the roof. There was nothing I could do” Renly said bitterly.

Stannis got up and approached the door where Renly was standing despondently. For a moment he thought about putting his hand on his shoulder, but then he thought better of it, and just left the room.

Some of the candles in the master bedroom had gone out and the room was now darker than before. The boy looked even paler in the darkness, laid out on the bed, his hair still wet with sweat and water from the compresses they had been giving him. But Stannis knew that the paleness of death was not the kind to be tamed by sunlight.

He took out his tape measure slowly, but he didn’t move. He stood where he was, studying the boy’s lifeless form. He’d buried children before, but it never became any easier. The smaller the coffin, the harder to make.

“He was a week shy of turning eleven” someone said quietly.

Stannis almost jumped on the spot in surprise. He thought he was alone. Then he turned, and saw Sansa sitting in a corner behind him. He hadn’t noticed her as he entered.

“Miss Stark” he said, trusting his voice not to betray the fright she gave him.

“Mother told him not to climb. She’d always tell him that one day he’d crack his head. Well, she was proven right” Sansa said tonelessly. She shivered then, and Stannis realized that she was still in her wet clothes.

“Here, have this” he said, grabbing a blanket from a chair and giving it to Sansa.

She looked up at him in mild surprise, like she hadn’t thought she could prevent the cold somehow. Stannis was mostly surprised that no one else had thought to give her something to wrap herself in before. The last thing this house needed was another death – this time from pneumonia.

She took the blanket wordlessly and wrapped herself in it. Stannis observed her. He knew nothing about her, but in these last few hours he had already started to admire her. It was no small thing for a girl to brave the raging storm on her own to go fetch help for her brother. She had been so brave, and so efficient, helping Renly with everything he asked because her mother was too shaken to be of any help, not even taking a minute to change her soaking clothes. And now, how strange, she was crying quietly, away from the rest of her family.

“My condolences” Stannis managed eventually. It was the most appropriate thing to say, yet it still somehow rang inappropriate in his ears. 

She looked up at him again, hurriedly drying fresh tears from her eyes.

“Thank you” she said quietly. Her hands flew to her hair, to her dress, trying to put some order in the mess. He could understand it. This was something she could control, unlike the world around her.

“If there is anything I can do…”

“Your job, as well as you can” she said politely, and left him, wrapping the blanket more tightly round her slender form.

He stood motionless for a few moments. Then, with a sigh he started unravelling the measuring tape he was still holding in his hand.

//

He saw her again the next day, when she came to town to discuss practical matters for the funeral, as well as payment. She was dressed in black, her skin looking even paler against the dark fabric, dark circles under her eyes. He was again surprised to see her in front of his door, and he told her so.

“Mother is still in a state of shock. She wants Robb by her side all the time, else she says she will go insane” Sansa explained. Her tone was flat again, not divulging anything, neither displeasure nor offence.

He felt offended on her part. Though the skies were clear today, he still thought it too hard a task for a girl her age to have to arrange her brother’s funeral. In his private thoughts, he put the blame on Robb, for being so spineless and not taking charge of the situation. Yet Sansa said nothing about it, and with a steady voice and trembling hands she discussed with him all the particulars of the funeral.

“Poor lass. Burying a brother is a dark and sorry business” Davos, his employee, said as they watched Sansa Stark ride away. “She must be devastated”

“Yes. But I think Miss Stark is an extremely strong girl” Stannis said. “She will recover, in time”

Davos gave him a funny look, but said nothing, and returned to the back room to work on Bran Stark’s coffin.

//

He saw her again at the funeral, dressed in black, her hair pulled in a tight bun. In her father’s absence, she was helping Robb support their mother, who was perpetually close to collapsing. Sansa’s eyes were dry now, her mouth set in a hard line, yet the sum of her features revealed sorrow.

After the service, he gave his condolences once again, and she thanked him once again for his help. He said goodbye, thinking it would be a long time before he saw her again, and regretting the fact.

He was wrong.

This time, the news came to him before she did. Ned Stark, the owner of Winterfell had been found dead in the grounds of his farm, nearly beheaded with the axe they used for chopping wood. It was only a month after Bran’s untimely death.

She came to the funeral parlour, still dressed in black, her face white as a sheet, and once again he couldn’t fathom why it was her they had sent and not her brother, who was now head of the family.

“You must have heard” she said, taking the tea he offered her.

“I am very sorry” he said. He meant it, even though he didn’t think much of Ned Stark. He was friends with his older brother, but Stannis never saw what it was that made people like him so well. Yet to his surprise he found that because this was Sansa’s loss, he felt it more acutely. 

What a strange thing. He was always able to distance himself from his clients and their grief. If anything, sometimes he had to be careful to not appear too uninterested in their personal crisis. But he couldn’t see how anyone could look at Sansa Stark, dignified even in grief, and not be moved.

“They’re looking for the man who did it. But they have no suspects. No one saw anything” she said quietly.

“My brother Robert was good friends with your father. As the town’s magistrate, I’m sure he’ll do everything in his power to find the person who did this” Stannis reassured her. The truth was he wasn’t entirely sure that what he said was true. Robert had proven to be fairly incompetent in his position, though he was still well-liked in the town.

Sansa nodded. She didn’t seem to put a lot of faith in his words either.

“I was the one to find him, you know” she said then, ever so quietly.

Stannis froze. He hadn’t heard of this detail so far.

“There was so much blood… And he just lay there, face down… It’s such an odd thing. I just stood and looked at him, because really, it was such a strange sight. It was like the world had turned upside down”

He said nothing, but not because he had nothing to say. It was simply that even he, frank as he always was, could see the distastefulness of speaking badly of her mother and older brother. How could they do this to her, treat her so? She had found her father’s body, and now she was forced to organize his funeral? It was simply unbelievable.

“What kind of wood did you use for Bran’s coffin?” Sansa asked then, taking him out of his menacing thoughts.

“Cherry. Beautiful, light wood” he said automatically. “Shall we… er, look for samples for your father?”

“No, no need. I’ve thought about it. It should be oak, if you have any. Good, sturdy wood, isn’t it? It would be right for father”

“Excellent choice. As a matter of fact we do have some oak” Stannis said, writing down the order. He felt weird talking so professionally to Sansa. Usually it was a defense mechanism, to set boundaries between himself and the customers, between their mourning and his peace of mind. But with Sansa he had the impulse to do the exact opposite, to put the stupid practicalities aside and ask her if she was alright.

Yet this was his job. Someone had to be in charge of the mundane, unpleasant things. Someone had to deal with practicalities, instead of asking people how they felt. What a stupid question that was, anyway. How were they supposed to feel right after losing someone? 

“Thank you” Sansa said softly. 

He looked up from the paper where he was taking notes. She was looking at him, her eyes tired yet soft, her delicate hands making a nest for her tea cup.

“What for?” he asked, a little confused.

“For asking why they sent me” she said.

//

They buried Ned up in the farm, next to Bran. Catelyn was inconsolable. Robb and Sansa had to hold her back when the workers started throwing the dirt back in the grave. Little Rickon tried to hide himself in his mother’s skirts but she had no thought to spare for him. Arya didn’t speak a single word, her intense grey eyes making her appear angry rather than sad.

Stannis left Winterfell right after the service, thinking that this was it – now it really would be a long time before he saw Sansa again. He felt rather sorry for that. Even though they had met under the worst possible circumstances, and they had seen each other for so little, he’d come to admire her, and care for her well-being. He had, of course, no designs on her. She was beautiful and brave, but she was also too young for him, and too good for him. A girl as pretty and fresh as her shouldn’t have to involve herself with a man who dealt with death on a daily basis. No, he didn’t allow himself to desire her. But seeing her every now and then when she came to town… that would be nice, and harmless.

They never found Ned’s killer. Stannis made sure to keep up with the case, visiting his brother the magistrate far more often that he normally would. But as Robert told him each time he would ask for news, there had been no witnesses, no clues, no suspects. There wasn’t anything substantial to lead them to any direction. Most likely the murder would remain unsolved, unless the culprit decided to confess.

“Why do you care so much anyway?” Robert asked in irritation on one of Stannis’ visits. “Ned was my friend, not yours”

Stannis saw it in his eyes then, the sorrow, the frustration over his own weakness. Despite what he thought of his brother and his talents or lack thereof, he could tell he had done his best to find his friend’s killer. It was only that his best had not been enough.

“I only think how horrible it must be for the family, to never know what happened” he said, trying unsuccessfully to shoo thoughts of Sansa from his mind. “It’s about… closure”

“I know” Robert said, pouring more brandy in his glass. He didn’t bother to ask Stannis if he wanted any – he knew the answer would be no. “Although, sometimes finding out the truth can be more devastating than being in darkness” he said thoughtfully.

“I disagree. Truth is always preferable to ignorance” Stannis said quickly.

“I know you think so” Robert said calmly. It was so odd for him to be so subdued, so quiet. “But sometimes ignorance really _is_ bliss”


	2. Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for leaving such lovely comments in the first chapter, I really appreciate it! ^_^

Arya disappeared two weeks after Ned’s funeral. The whole town was on edge now, and Stannis with them too. Many search parties were organized to find the younger Stark girl, assisting the local authorities as much as they could, but to no avail. Arya was gone, as if wiped from the face of earth.

“How is it possible that so much misfortune befalls one family?” Davos said one day, when they saw from the parlour’s window Robb and Sansa pass by on their cart, their backs straight, their bodies rigid. They must have come to town for supplies. People on the street stood and stared, but the two siblings looked straight ahead, jaws clenched and eyes empty.

“It’s… unnatural. Like they’re cursed” Davos went on.

“There are no such things as curses” Stannis snapped. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it all”

“Logical, yes. Pleasant, no” Davos said heavily.

Stannis scowled; he couldn’t argue with that. Whatever was happening up in Winterfell was foul business indeed.

The townspeople did not seem to be as skeptical as him. There would be little talk other than the misfortunes that had befallen the Starks of Winterfell farm, and the general consensus was that those things were not natural. It was impossible for one family to receive so many blows, one after the other. And if there was no natural reason, then there must be a supernatural one. 

First tentatively, and then more and more boldly, people started talking of spirits and curses. Winterfell must have been haunted, and the family must have –even accidentally- done something to enrage the evil spirits who dwelled there. The death of Bran Stark might have not been accidental at all – someone or something could have pushed him off the barn roof, or made him lose his footing. Ned Stark’s murder could be something more than just a murder –how that could be, no one seemed to have a satisfactory explanation, but that didn’t stop them from linking it with the supernatural. And young Arya Stark might have been possessed by those same evil spirits that brought her brother’s death, and the gods knew what had become of her. The more people would talk of those things, in the line for the grocery store, on the street as they were going on their errands, in the teahouse or the alehouse, the more certain they seemed to become of it, as if repeating it to one another and embellishing the stories with new made-up details and stipulations gave them any more credibility.

With any chance he was given, Stannis would dispute these ideas, irate at the thought that his fellow townsmen could be so susceptible, so willing to surrender their minds and logic to such superstitious nonsense, but to no avail. A haunted farm sounded far more interesting than a farm where three separate, common, and unfortunate events had taken place.

On the coming weeks, Sansa wouldn’t leave his mind. He wondered how she was doing, how hard all this was being on her. Had her family yet again saddled her with responsibilities beyond her age? Did she have anyone to talk to, anyone to lean on except from her mother and brother? He wanted to talk to her, ask her for himself how she was doing and if there was anything he could do to help, but in his heart he knew he had no right to. He was nothing to her – just the man who put her brother and father in coffins and buried them in the cold earth. And yet he still thought of her, and worried about her, and thought of what he would say to her, if he got to meet her again.

He bumped on her quite unexpectedly when he went to Renly’s practice to get some cough syrup. She was at the bottom of the stairs leading to his office, her eyes downcast, her brow heavy with clouds of worry.

“Miss Stark” he said, and she jumped a little at the sound of his voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you” he added hastily.

“You didn’t scare me” she said, a very faint smile on her pale lips. “I was a little lost in my thoughts”

“Are you alright?” he asked then. He wasn’t sure if he was asking about the visit to his brother the doctor, or in general. Sansa took it to mean the first.

“My brother Rickon is sick. I came to the doctor for his medicine” she said. Indeed, she was clutching a small brown bottle in her hands, her delicate fingers entwined.

“I’m very sorry to hear that” he said. “I hope it’s nothing serious?”

“I don’t know. It’s been days now and he’s not getting better. Your brother is not entirely sure what it is. We’re trying different things” she said sadly.

“I see” he said. He didn’t promise her that her brother would get better. He had no way of knowing if that was true. He had already promised her that Robert would find her father’s killer, and that had been a lie. He wouldn’t lie to her again.

“Oh, Mr. Baratheon…” she said then, her voice trembling a little. “I'm worried sick about Arya and now Rickon... Why is this happening to our family? Why do we have to endure so many evils?”

And then, with no other warning, she burst into tears, and her sobs made her body shake like that of a fish out of water, gasping for air. For a moment he was at complete loss as to what to do with a young woman in distress. He almost thought about getting Renly to give her something for her nerves, but she was blocking the way to the stairs. Besides, even though he was not an emotional man and never indulged in such weaknesses, he was of the opinion that for other people, sometimes a good cry could do them a lot more good than medicine or empty words.

He touched her shoulder awkwardly, a weak and undecided move of consolation. She took it as an invitation, and threw herself against him, her small hands clutching at his jacket lapels, her tears staining his shirt. For a moment he froze. This was not something he had expected or predicted, and it was certainly not… proper. Yet by the way Sansa was clinging on him, he could tell it was what she needed. He wrapped an awkward arm around her shoulders, and kept her slight figure close to his, reveling in her warmth and her scent of lilacs despite himself.

At last, the sobbing ceased, and her tense body grew soft and boneless in his arms. For one wild moment he wanted to hug her more tightly, not just around the shoulders, but around the waist, crushing her chest on his. He did no such thing of course, and obediently took a step back when Sansa gently extracted herself from his embrace.

“Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed this” she whispered, a wan smile on her lips. They were red now, and so were her eyes and cheeks, and despite the reason they were so, he was glad to see some colour on her face. Her paleness had something unnatural about it.

“Er, you are welcome” he said stiffly. He suddenly felt so empty without her in his arms.

She made for the door, and as she was ready to open it, his voice stopped her.

“Miss Stark? If you ever need anything… I am at your disposal” he said. He didn’t know what he could do to help her, no matter how much he wanted it. But if she had something in mind, he would gladly do it.

“You are most kind, Mr. Baratheon” she said demurely, and went out into the busy street.

Renly came down the stairs then, not giving him any time to delve on what had just happened.

“Is that you, Stannis? I thought I heard noises”

“I was talking with Miss Stark on her way out. What is wrong with her brother?” Stannis asked, having completely forgotten the purpose of his own visit.

“I’ll be damned if I know” Renly said, his face darkening. He looked tired and worried. Stannis had rarely seen him so concerned, despite his demanding profession. “It seemed like a simple cold at first, and gave the family the proper medicine to give the boy, but now… The symptoms - they don’t match with any known illness. I’m doing my best to treat the boy, but without the right diagnosis it will do him no good”

“You don’t find it strange then? The boy’s father is brutally murdered, the sister disappears, and now the boy falls under a mysterious illness?” Stannis said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean to say?” Renly frowned. He had gone back upstairs to his office, and Stannis had followed him.

“Have you thought… that this might not be a natural sickness?” Stannis said carefully.

Renly, who was rummaging in one of his desk drawers, straightened his back and looked at him, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Are you suggesting someone’s poisoned Rickon Stark? Who on earth would want to harm a sweet little boy like him?”

“I don’t know. All I’m saying is, if you’ve ran out of diseases, you could start trying to match his symptoms with common poisons” Stannis said.

“This is mad” Renly said. He clearly didn’t even want to consider the possibility of poisoning.

“Will you please do it? It can do no harm” Stannis said. He didn’t even know how he had come up with the idea, but the more he thought about it, the less mad it seemed to him.

“If you insist” Renly said absentmindedly. His right hand was now resting on a piece of folded paper on his desk, his index running absentmindedly along the paper’s edges. Stannis squinted at it. He thought he could see the ghost of ink on the other side of the sheet, so he surmised it must be a letter. It looked worn and soft on the edges, as if Renly had folded it and unfolded it many times already.

“Is something the matter?” he asked.

Renly looked down at the letter, understanding what Stannis meant.

“It’s from Loras Tyrell” he supplied.

“Your friend from medical school?” Stannis said. He vaguely remembered Renly’s enthusiastic mentions of his colleague, Loras Tyrel, the few times he remembered to send letters back home.

“He’s part of a team of doctors setting up a new clinic in Silverhill. He’s asked me to go work with them” Renly said sheepishly.

“Are you planning to go?” Stannis asked bluntly.

Renly’s cheeks went pink, like when he was a child.

“I… I’m thinking about it” he said.

“You can’t go. Who’s going to take care of people here? You can’t just up and leave, that would be incredibly irresponsible” Stannis said curtly. 

Renly grimaced, as if his brother’s words caused him pain. He opened his mouth, presumably to defend himself, but Stannis never heard Renly’s solution to the problem he was about to create.

“Dr. Baratheon! Dr. Baratheon!” someone was banging on Renly’s door. Suddenly Stannis was aware of commotion in the street below.

“Come in?” Renly said.

One of the townspeople burst in, holding his cap in his hand.

“They found the Stark girl, doctor. You must come and see her”

“Is she alive?” Stannis asked immediately.

“No, sir” the townsman said quietly.

Renly paled. Stannis closed his eyes. More gruesome work was awaiting him.

He accompanied Renly, mostly out of personal interest and not because he was needed there. They rode to the creek that lay at the southwest of the town. Robert had arrived at the scene before them, barking at people to back off and mind their own business.

The girl, or what had once been the girl, was lying on the muddy bank of the creek, on a bed of dead leaves. Renly approached the body gingerly, a handkerchief covering his nose. How had such an icky person become a doctor?

“Are we sure it’s her?” Stannis asked Robert. The body was so bloated that it was hard to tell who it was supposed to be.

“It’s her, believe me” Robert said gravely.

“She must have stayed in the water for a good while, judging by the stage of decomposing she’s in” Renly said. “She might have been dead from the first day of her disappearance”

“So she drowned” Robert said, always eager for a quick answer.

“Hard to tell” Renly said thoughtfully after a bit of prodding. “See these bruises around her neck? They’re not so visible anymore, but it’s clear enough that someone tried to strangle her”

Stannis felt the hair at the back of his neck standing up. Arya had been murdered, and in his books this increased the chances of little Rickon being poisoned.

“So they strangled her and then threw her in the creek” Robert said, the words coming out of his mouth with increasing difficulty.

“Or someone kept her underwater until she drowned” Stannis said, almost to himself.

The two older brothers stared at the younger one, kneeling in the mud, waiting for the verdict.

“I cannot know for sure. I have to perform an autopsy and see if there is any water in the girl’s lungs or not” Renly said with a grimace, clearly not anticipating the moment he would have to cut Arya Stark up.

“How didn’t we find her? Lots of search parties passed from here” Robert mused.

“Perhaps she wasn’t killed here. It could have been done higher up in the creek” Stannis suggested, knitting his eyebrows. “There were heavy rains again these last few days, it’s possible that the rising waters carried the body further down the stream”

Renly nodded quickly, while Robert scratched his beard thoughtfully. Stannis had the fleeting thought that he could do a much better job as the magistrate than Robert.

“Aye, so it seems. At any rate, the girl is dead, and someone has to tell the family” Robert said then glumly.

“I can do it” Stannis said, before he even knew what he was saying.

“You?” Robert said, raising his bushy eyebrows.

“Yes, if you are busy here”

“I suppose it’s fitting. The family will have to come to you anyway” Robert said, and left him to go talk with Renly.

Stannis rode to Winterfell with a heavy heart. It was not his job to bring people news of death. His job was to deal with death after the news had come. And yet suddenly he couldn’t bear the idea of Sansa finding from someone else what had happened to her little sister. He didn’t even think of Catelyn or Robb – all his thoughts were on Sansa, the girl that, to his view, had been lifting the weight of the entire family for these past two months.

When he reached the house, a blanched servant girl opened the door and ushered him to the drawing room. He thought he could hear sobs from somewhere in the house. Had someone outran him, and managed to bring the dreadful news to the family before he could?

When Sansa entered the room, her eyes were red, her hands trembling. He thought he was right, until she spoke.

“We lost Rickon”

This time she didn’t wait for any sort of invitation to fall in his arms and cry with her head on his chest. He wasn’t in a place to think whether their earlier encounter had set a precedent of intimacy that was considered appropriate by her. All he knew, all he thought as he held her close to him, was that he had to wait for her tears to dry a little, so that he could bring her fresh tears with his news.


	3. Oak and walnut

He was not so surprised when he saw Sansa enter the funeral home the next day, as much as he was angry. Not at her, but at her thoughtless mother and brother.

“I suppose they thought I’ve been good at it so far” she said quietly, a dead smile on her face. She gave the explanation on her own, without a comment from him. Perhaps his face showed her plainly what he was thinking. Perhaps she was coming to know him.

“Did you ever have to bury two members of the same family at once?” she asked as they looked at the wood samples. 

“I’ve never had to bury this many members of any family” he replied frankly.

“Of course” she said absentmindedly, her fingertips brushing on a piece of poplar.

“Miss Stark… It’s not my place to say, but have you considered that someone might have targeted your family?” Stannis said reluctantly.

Sansa frowned at the poplar. 

“The thought occurred to me after Arya’s disappearance. I had this terrible feeling that we would never see her again. How I wish I had been wrong…”

“Do you know who would want to hurt your family?”

“I have already told your brother the magistrate, Mr. Baratheon. I have no idea what is going on” Sansa said with a sigh.

“We have four deaths so far, just in the span of two months” Stannis insisted. He wasn’t sure why he was telling her this, why he was so set on the idea of someone targeting the family. The last thing Sansa needed right now was to talk more of death. And yet, if that meant he could keep her safe…

“Father and Arya were the only ones murdered” Sansa said.

Stannis nodded curtly. Renly had found a small amount of water in Arya’s lungs, which led him to think that she might have been strangled while being held underwater. 

“But Bran’s death was an accident, and Rickon was sick” Sansa went on.

“Are you certain of that? My brother told me he found it hard to diagnose Rickon”

“What is it that you mean?”

“I think he might have been poisoned” Stannis said carefully.

Sansa turned to look at him then, forgetting the planks of wood for a moment. Her bright blue eyes were now wide, giving her an expression of genuine puzzlement.

“Do you really think so?” she asked in a small voice.

“I think it’s very likely. I hear Rickon was a very healthy child”

“Yes, I suppose, with the exception of the last few weeks. Is there… some way to know?” she asked, her eyes still wide with confusion and surprise.

“Sadly, not any more, or so the doctor says” Stannis said heavily.

“Oh, what does it matter then? He’s dead, he won’t come back, and the manner of his death does not change anything” Sansa said.

“Miss Stark, with all respect, it changes everything. You and your family could be in grave danger”

“Oh, let them come, whoever it is. I’m so tired of all these deaths… So tired of taking care of both the living and the dead. Let them come and take me too if they want to. At least I shall rest then” Sansa said despondently. “Is poplar a good quality?” she asked then.

“No, not really. It’s one of the cheapest we have” Stannis said automatically, stunned by the sudden change of subject. 

“Don’t bury me in that then. No, I’ll have ash instead”

“What about Arya and Rickon?” he asked. Her talking about choosing her own coffin made him very uncomfortable.

“Oh, of course. They come first” Sansa said, a joyless smile on her lips. “This black walnut would be nice for Rickon. And oak for Arya, like Father. She was ever the daddy’s girl”

Stannis wrote the order down quietly. He was starting to really worry about Sansa Stark. There were so many things that were not right, but he felt it wasn’t fair to discuss with her. She had too much on her plate already.

He went to Robert that evening, asking him to go have a talk with Robb. The boy finally had to step up to his role as head of the family. Robert said he would, but the tone of resignation didn’t bode well for Stannis.

//

The day of the funeral was cold and sunny. Rickon and Arya were buried next to their father and brother, under the sycamore tree, and took their secrets to their graves. Catelyn wasn’t crying during the ceremony. She seemed to barely register what was happening around her. A septon was reading hymns as the men lowered the coffins in the dark earth, but all Stannis could hear were the sobs dying in Sansa’s throat.

For the first time he didn’t leave directly after the funeral. Instead he stayed, walking aimlessly around the farm while everyone else was having a light lunch in the dining room, trying to figure out what was about this place that attracted so much disaster. He was near the barn when to his surprise Sansa appeared, her black skirts rustling in the soft wind as she approached him.

She wordlessly took his hand in hers and to his surprise he found that delicate as it looked, the palm was a little rough and calloused. He didn’t know why he was surprised. Despite her striking beauty, Sansa was no princess – life in a farm could be rough, and the work was not done only by the hired hands. Sansa led him inside the barn and then without a word she took his face in her cold hands and kissed him. He was so surprised by her move, that it took him a few moments to react – enough to register the softness and warmth of her lips and the tip of her tongue trying to gain passage through his own thin lips.

“Miss Stark!” he said breathlessly once he regained his senses, holding her by the shoulders to keep her at safe distance. “What are you _doing_?”

“Trying to feel something –anything- that isn’t grief or pain” she said glumly, but without embarrassment.

“Miss Stark, this is highly inappropriate-”

“I do not care. Please, Stannis, let me _feel_ something – I _need_ to feel something else” she said imploringly, and somehow she managed to escape his grasp and charge towards him again, her lips crashing on his. As much as he wanted to –or rather, ought to- Stannis couldn’t completely resist her. He found himself returning the kiss in the same desperate manner he was receiving it, and for a few short moments he was willing to lose himself in the heat that was spreading through his body and the unprecedented pleasure that was slowly clouding his mind. It was only when he started tasting the saltiness of her tears along with the sweetness of her mouth that he regained enough control to push her away.

“No. No. This isn’t what you want for yourself” he said seriously, trying to catch his breath.

“How do you know what I want, or what I need?” Sansa retorted, her face darkening.

“You are young, and you are going through some profoundly painful experiences. Don’t do something you might regret later. I… don’t want to be part of your regrets” Stannis said. He felt like such a hypocrite with her sweet taste still in his mouth.

“I don’t have regrets. Not now, not ever” Sansa said earnestly. She made a move towards him, but he instinctively stepped back. She pressed her lips together then, her hands running to her head to make sure her hair was in place, and then she left without another word.

//

The rumors about the Starks and their supposedly haunted farm were now wilder than ever. After the discovery of Arya’s body and the mysterious death of Rickon, there was nothing that could convince people that evil spirits were not involved in the misfortunes of the family. The fact that the Starks’ servant girl left her work fearing something bad may happen to her didn’t help at all. She was a foolish girl, telling whoever was willing to listen to her (which was the entire town) of weird noises at night in the farm and strange shadows lurking in the corners of the house. It was enough to excite everyone’s imagination even more.

“Are they all daft?” Stannis grumbled in annoyance for the umpteenth time that afternoon, pacing around the front room of the funeral parlour. “We’ve got a killer on the loose and all people care about is ghosts in a farm?”

“People like ghost stories and mysteries” Davos said. He was sitting at the desk, watching Stannis making his circles. It was a quiet afternoon, about a week after Arya and Rickon’s funeral. There hadn’t been any deaths the last few days.

“People like feeding off of other people’s misery if you ask me” Stannis said glumly.

“That is true too” Davos said mildly. “What?” he said then, noticing that his boss was now pressing his face on the front window.

“I can see Miss Stark talking with a man outside the supply store, but I don’t know who he is. Do you know him?” Stannis asked, squinting at the figures across the street.

“I think it’s Ramsay Bolton, from the Bolton farm” Davos said when he approached the window.

“I see” Stannis said.

He had heard more of the Boltons than he had seen of them. Their farm was even further out of town than that of the Starks, almost closer to the next town, and he assumed that the Boltons preferred to go there for their supplies and trade, which was why he seldom saw them.

Now that he saw Ramsay Bolton he didn’t like him at all. He was a thickset man and to Stannis it looked like he was using his build to threaten Sansa in some way. Whatever conversation they were having, it didn’t seem to be a pleasant one. Sansa’s body language was tense and hostile, and Ramsay seemed to gesticulate aggressively. Sansa eventually took a step back as if to move away from him, but Ramsay grabbed her wrist and didn’t let go even after she made efforts to free her hand.

“Hey!” Stannis shouted. He didn’t know when he had stepped out of the parlour. He was now crossing the street, and with a few long strides he had reached Ramsay Bolton and Sansa. “What do you think you’re doing?” he growled at Ramsay.

“Talking” Ramsay said with a sardonic smile. He had a fleshy face and dead eyes. Stannis’s initial instinct of dislike was now amplified.

“Is that how you talk? Let Miss Stark go, you’re hurting her” Stannis said coolly. He had instinctively positioned himself between Ramsay and Sansa, but the foul man was still holding her wrist tightly.

“I’ll let her go when I’m done with her” Ramsay said with a scowl. Evidently he didn’t like being told what to do.

“You’ll let go of her _now_ ” Stannis said in his most threatening tone and drew himself up to his full height. From his peripheral vision he could see Davos approaching, already rolling up his sleeves.

Ramsay seemed to weigh his options for a moment. He was younger and probably more muscular than Stannis, but Stannis was taller and had Davos on his side who was also well-built.

“Fine” Ramsay said, his eyes narrowing. “You won’t get rid of me so easily” he spat at Sansa then, but he released her and walked away.

“Are you alright?” Stannis asked Sansa as soon as he was certain that Ramsay was really walking away.

She nodded, but as she did, a strong shiver ran through her body. She was clearly shaken, and her eyes wouldn’t meet those of Stannis. He wondered if the circumstances of their last meeting had anything to do with that.

“Come with me. You need to sit down for a moment” he said then as gently as he could.

She followed him to the funeral parlour without a word, and sat on the chair she usually sat when she came to him to tend to the deaths in her family.

“I’ll put the kettle on” Davos said and disappeared in the back room.

Stannis sat opposite to Sansa, who was now looking intently at her hands, two small white doves floating in the black sea of her skirts.

“Miss Stark?” he ventured eventually. He suddenly felt awkward and bashful, completely at odds with the person who had just stood up to Ramsay Bolton. He had not seen her since her siblings’ funeral and the way they had parted then still mortified him.

“You can call me Sansa” Sansa said. “I’d wager you know me better than most people in this town”

“I… can’t” Stannis said. _It wouldn’t be proper_ he wanted to add, but if he said that, what had happened between them in the barn would come and hover in the space between them.

“Did Ramsay Bolton hurt you?” he asked her then, changing the subject.

“No. Not much” Sansa said quietly and tugged at her sleeve to show him her wrist. She held it up, the only thing in the no man’s land between them.

He supposed she was offering him her wrist to examine it. From where he was standing he could see no bruises forming on the creamy white skin, and he knew that he had no right, it was just not proper to touch her, but all the same he couldn’t resist taking her hand in his, his fingers touching her wrist tentatively. _Stop it,_ he told himself, but before he could come to his senses Sansa turned her hand so that her palm could now rest on his. Her hand was cool to the touch, her skin, though calloused, felt soft against his own calloused hand. _Stop,_ he told himself again, but her delicate fingers were now curling around his hand, and his own fingers answered to the call, curling around her hand out of their own volition. A sigh came up to his throat, but he had enough sense to suppress it. 

He wondered if this – a literal offering of her hand – was simply an offer of reconciliation or something more. A week ago he had kissed Sansa Stark, but this somehow felt more intimate.

He braved a look on Sansa’s face. Her eyes were bright and soft, her mouth relaxed. In her mourning clothes she suddenly looked terribly young and fragile, and he had the urge to hold her in his arms again, as if that could take any of her sorrows away.

“Your wrist seems to be alright” he managed eventually and left Sansa’s hand. It was harder than he thought it would be. It fell limply on her dark lap.

Davos came in with the teapot and three cups then, and Stannis felt relieved that he had retrieved his hand before Davos saw him.

“There you go, Miss Stark” Davos said kindly and gave Sansa a cup of tea, for which she thanked him politely.

“Miss Stark, may I ask you what Ramsay Bolton was talking to you about?” Stannis asked then in what he hoped was a gentle tone.

“Something personal” she said quietly, looking at her teacup.

Personal? What on earth did that mean? To his annoyance, Stannis felt a tug of jealousy.

“May I ask what the nature of your relationship with Mr Bolton is?” he asked then, knowing well that his tone wasn’t as gentle anymore. 

Sansa hesitated, biting her bottom lip, then took a deep breath.

“He is under the impression that he is my betrothed” she said, her cheeks flushing.

Stannis almost dropped his teacup.

_“What?”_

“He is _not!_ He only _thinks_ he is!” Sansa said hastily. 

“Why does he think that?” Stannis asked, utterly confused and, quite inexplicably, a little hurt.

“If I tell you, I will be divulging family matters” Sansa said nervously.

“You can trust us” Stannis said seriously. He had already told Sansa she could rely on him if something happened, and he wished she would believe him.

Sansa took a tremulous breath.

“The farm isn’t doing well. We’ve been having… serious financial difficulties for a while now. Father didn’t know what to do. Then Roose Bolton came to him, telling him that his son wanted to marry me. He said he’d help my father with his debts, that we could merge the two biggest farms in the area, only if he could have me as a daughter in law. Father said yes”

Stannis tried to keep his expression nondescript, but inside he was furious. Ned had practically accepted to sell off his daughter to settle the farm’s debts. He knew there was no use in hating the dead, but now he hated Ned Stark.

“He meant well” Sansa said feebly, as if she could sense his indignation. “He had to think of the farm, our workers, the family… This way he could save them all”

“By sacrificing you” Stannis said through gritted teeth, unable to contain himself.

“Please don’t think ill of him. He was doing his best” Sansa said sadly. “When I found out about his plans I begged him not to marry me off to Ramsey, and he relented when he saw how miserable I was. He went to Roose Bolton soon after and told him that the deal was off, told him he would find some other way to save the farm. Then he died of course, without coming up with a solution”

“But why does Ramsay Bolton think you still are his fiancée?” Davos asked.

“He wouldn’t accept that father broke the deal. He had the nerve to come to us a few days after father’s death to ask for my hand again, thinking that we would be in even greater need then, but Robb made him go away. Still, he won’t give up” Sansa said, shuddering.

“Miss Stark” Stannis said steadily. Now was not the time to be consumed by his anger and disgust towards the Boltons. “Does anyone else know about all this?”

“Not that I know of” Sansa said.

Stannis glanced at Davos, and the look on his assistant’s face confirmed his thoughts. Even two humble undertakers could tell that what Sansa had just told them was making the Boltons prime suspects, giving them serious motive in the murder of Ned Stark.

“I think you should talk to my brother the magistrate” Stannis said then, retaining a calm tone so as not to alarm Sansa.

“I don’t see why” she said, looking doubtful. “Ramsay Bolton is an awful man, but he is not breaking any law”

“I think this is really important” Stannis said more pressingly. “We could go to Robert even now”

“I- not now” Sansa said, glancing at the window and getting up abruptly. “It’s getting dark. I should return home, my mother and brother will be worried sick”

“You shouldn’t ride alone” Stannis said quickly. With everything that Sansa had told him, and with all the deaths that had occurred in her family, he didn’t think it was paranoid at all to assume she was in danger.

“Will you ride with me?” Sansa asked, almost hopefully.

He was tempted, he really was. The chance to spend some time alone with her, the chance to be useful to her in some way… But he couldn’t. It wasn’t right, or prudent. It was incredibly selfish and improper.

“Davos will” he said eventually. Davos nodded in agreement. “Will you please let me speak to my brother about what you told us? I think it is very important, and it cannot wait. And please, be very careful if you see any of the Boltons, and always remember to lock the doors after sunset”

Sansa looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments. He was starting to realise that whatever expression her face held, he was always in equal danger of getting lost in her eyes.

“If you really think it’s important” she said. “I trust you”

He watched her ride off with Davos, his heart still swelling at Sansa’s last words. She _trusted_ him. He kept his gaze steady until her shrinking figure was completely lost in the dark and the distance, and then he thought he felt the ghost of her hand in his, her palm pressing on his palm like it had done less than half an hour ago.

And that was when he knew, that despite his best efforts and resolve, he was utterly and hopelessly in love with Sansa Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Suddenly we have a prime suspect! Let's see where that goes.
> 
> In case you are wondering why on earth Renly didn't perform an autopsy on Rickon to determine whether he was indeed poisoned or not, and why no one is discussing this, it's because as far as I know, in the time period the story is set toxicology was not advanced enough. If I am wrong, let's just roll with it and say that in this verse at least, it isn't. :D


	4. Racing with time

“What on earth are you talking about?” Robert said, his bushy eyebrows knitting under a creased brow.

Stannis sighed, prepared to repeat everything he had just said. He had come to his brother’s house right after Sansa and Davos had left, and he had caught Robert in the middle of having dinner.

“I think Ramsay and Roose Bolton have a motive for the Stark murders” he said patiently. “Ned Stark had promised his daughter Sansa to Ramsay Bolton, in exchange for financial help from Roose Bolton. He broke the deal when Sansa refused to marry Ramsay, but it seems like the Boltons were not happy at all about this”

“And you know all this from Sansa Stark?” Robert said, still disbelieving.

“Yes. I… intervened when I saw Ramsay Bolton being aggressive towards her earlier today. I asked her to tell me what had happened”

The look of disbelief wouldn’t leave Robert’s face.

“She trusts me” Stannis added and forced himself to look Robert in the eye as he said that. He thought he saw anger flash in his brother’s eyes, but only for a moment.

“So you think one of the Boltons killed Ned because he wouldn’t give them Sansa?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know. Perhaps. Don’t you think it’s worth investigating? It’s the only lead you have”

“This doesn’t explain Arya’s death” Robert said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps she saw something she wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe the Boltons are trying to bring misery to the family that spurned them” Stannis suggested. “I am also suspecting that the youngest Stark boy was poisoned, though Renly didn’t get the chance to prove that”

“Rickon was sick”

“Renly couldn’t match his symptoms with any known illness”

“Renly could have made a mistake” Robert said dismissively.

“Renly is a good doctor” Stannis said. For all his sensibilities, he had never really doubted his brother’s skills.

“If Rickon was poisoned, wouldn’t the Boltons have to go to Winterfell often? Don’t you think they would be seen there, that people wouldn’t ask questions? This doesn’t add up, Stannis” Robert said.

“I don’t know how they did it. I’m not even saying that they _did_ do it. All I’m saying is that Miss Stark revealed to us a very strong motive, and it would be wrong not to look into it. You have to make inquiries. Find out if they had alibis on the days of Ned and Arya’s deaths, do _something_ ” Stannis said seriously.

“Since when do you care about the Starks’ well-being?” Robert said curiously.

Stannis didn’t really care about the Starks. He only cared about Sansa, and the terrible grief that the death of her father and siblings had brought to her, along with the heavy burden of taking care of her remaining family. He would gladly do anything in his power to bring to justice the murderers of her family, just for her sake. But of course, that was something he could never tell Robert.

“It may surprise you,” he said instead with a steady, cool voice “but I don’t particularly enjoy burying so many members of the same family, especially when they’re so young”

Robert snorted disbelievingly.

“Why not? It’s good for your business”

Stannis blanched. He and Robert had never gotten along very well, but this was low, even for Robert. Under any other circumstances, a comment as offensive as this would be enough to make him leave his brother’s house without a word. But he was here for Sansa, and her well-being was more important to him than his pride. 

He looked angrily at his brother and to his surprise, he saw him look hurt even though he was the one who had uttered the insult.

“Ned never told you about his difficulties” Stannis said, realization dawning on him.

“No, he didn’t” Robert said gruffly. “He told Roose Bolton instead. And Sansa, whom I have known since infancy, preferred to come to you with her troubles instead of me” he added, not hiding his bitterness.

Stannis didn’t know what to say to that. He had no idea why Ned had not talked to his closest friend. And he wasn’t sure he understood what had made Sansa trust him, what had made her warm up to him so much, when he was certain he had done nothing to warrant such feelings on her side. He was just the undertaker, the crow, the man who had buried her father and her siblings.

“Ned was too damn proud” Robert said heavily. And for the first time, Stannis could see just how great the loss of Ned had been to Robert.

“Listen” he said. “Will you just look into it?”

“Yes, of course I will” Robert said tiredly. “Ramsay Bolton has a history of violence in the region, and I’ve never liked his father anyway”

//

People who came to Stannis always spoke of time as an enemy, a cruel force that had taken their loved ones away prematurely. Time had always been a friend to him, or at least not an enemy. Its passing was natural, and it never interfered with the course of his life. Yet on the days after his visit to Robert, time seemed to be unusually merciless and cruel, passing excruciating slowly.

Stannis could barely contain himself, finding it hard to sit in one place for too long. He wished he could have gone with Robert to the Bolton farm, though he knew his brother wouldn’t have allowed it. He had almost convinced himself that if he had gone with Robert, they would have traveled faster, reached their destination earlier and found the answers they were seeking. At least then he would have been useful to Sansa, instead of tending to other people’s dead. She never left his thoughts these days. She was always somewhere around, often on the foreground, her bright blue eyes round and sad, her mouth hopeful, her hands unwittingly searching for his. Even when he had to perform some important task, she was still hovering in the background, his constant companion.

He longed to see her, to make sure she was well and safe. More than once he toyed with the idea of leaving Davos to take over the funeral parlour for the day, so that he could go up to Winterfell and see Sansa. He had no right, he knew. Despite her apparent fondness, he had no right to take up any of her time, to bring up any sort of questions about her character. No, he would have to wait for news from Robert to have some excuse to see her.

When he heard that Robert had returned to town, he went straight to his house, ignoring thoughtfulness and propriety, which dictated that he gave his brother some time to rest.

“Well?” he said impatiently once Robert’s maid had shown him in.

Robert scowled at him. Evidently Stannis hadn’t given him enough time to even change his traveling clothes.

“There’s nothing to it” Robert said, slumping on his favourite armchair.

“What do you mean?”

“The Boltons are clean. They may be terrible people, but they are clean. They have very strong alibis, confirmed by many different people”

“Are you sure?” Stannis said, trying to hide his surprise. He had tried his best to keep his thoughts neutral and not blame the murders on Ramsay Bolton until there was definitive proof, but deep down he had been convinced it was him who had caused so much pain to Sansa.

“Yes, Stannis, I’m sure. It can’t be them, neither Ramsay nor Roose. Whatever happened up in Winterfell, they’re not involved in it. Now go, I want to rest” Robert said impatiently, waving his hand as if Stannis were an annoying fly.

Stannis left him without a word, and started walking aimlessly down the main street. He didn’t know what to think. Ever since Sansa had revealed Ned’s deal with the Boltons and he had seen Ramsay for himself, everything had clicked in his mind. Who else could be the killer if not the callous, brutish Ramsay Bolton? Who else could have a reason to harm a family so well loved in the area?

He noticed that his steps had led him to Renly’s practice. His little brother was not someone he usually turned to for anything, but Davos was away for the day and the thought of returning to an empty funeral parlour was suddenly disconcerting.

“Are you expecting more patients?” he asked Renly when he popped his head in his brother’s office.

“It’s too late in the day for that” Renly said, looking at him in amusement. “Take a seat”

Stannis didn’t. Instead he stayed where he was and took in his surroundings. There was something different about the room. It somehow seemed tidier. Less cluttered, that was it. Then his eyes moved from the walls to the floor, and saw the piles of books.

“You are leaving” he said flatly.

“Yes” Renly said, his cheeks going red again. For a brief moment Stannis wondered whether his little brother was still afraid of him, like he sometimes was as a child.

“Good” Stannis said. Renly looked at him in confusion.

“I thought you didn’t want me to go. Didn’t want the town to be left without a doctor”

“No, you should go” Stannis said calmly. Renly was not a bad doctor. He was just not cut out to be a doctor in a remote town.

“Robert wants me to stay”

“Then you should definitely go”

Renly laughed a little at that.

“I’m not as thoughtless as you two might think me. I wrote to the district governor, they’re going to find another doctor to take over the practice” Renly said, looking rather proud of himself for having been so provident.

“Good. Does Robert know?”

“I’ll tell him soon. He’s back in town I heard?”

“Yes” Stannis said glumly.

“It wasn’t the Boltons after all?” Renly asked. Stannis looked at him in surprise. He had not told anyone other than Robert about his suspicions on the Boltons. How many people had Robert told?

“No, it wasn’t” Stannis confirmed. He still couldn’t believe it.

“I’m not surprised” Renly said lightly.

“What?” Stannis said sharply, fixing Renly with his eyes. 

“Well, I’ve seen them. They’re not especially tall, but they are both well-built men” Renly said conversationally.

“And?”

“Well, remember Ned Stark’s body? His neck?”

“Not particularly” Stannis said. He tried to picture Ned in the morgue, when he and Davos had brought the coffin over. All he could remember was that at the time, he had looked at the dead man’s face searchingly, and he had found nothing that reminded him of Sansa.

“His neck had been chopped off from the back, but not clean. There had been multiple blows, and none of them was too deep. A man like Roose or Ramsay Bolton could have done a much better job. One or two blows, and Ned’s head would have been completely severed from his body” Renly explained.

“Why on earth didn’t you say anything?” Stannis said in an accusatory sort of tone.

“I did, to Robert” Renly said, for once unperturbed by his brother’s sharp words.

Stannis stopped in his tracks. He had been advancing – to do what, he didn’t know. Of course Renly had told Robert. He was the magistrate; he was responsible for finding the killer. Stannis had no reason to be told anything. He was just the undertaker. The dead told him no tales like they did to Renly. He was only responsible for putting them in the ground and nothing more. Their manner of death was irrelevant.

“It was hard to tell with certainty about Arya – the body was so bloated – but judging from the traces of bruises in her neck, it is possible that they were made by a smaller pair of hands – that is, smaller than the average male adult’s” Renly went on.

“And Robert knows this” 

“Yes. Which makes his whole trip to the Boltons rather pointless, I suppose”

“Robert can be quite thick sometimes” Stannis grunted.

He left Renly’s practice, cursing under his breath. He suddenly felt the limitations of his profession more acutely than ever in his life. The undertaker had some respect because he was needed, but no gravitas. His opinion on the world of the living had no importance – his expertise was the dead, and most specifically, their journey to their final resting place. Whatever he thought, whatever he said, he could have no influence on the community, not even on individuals. Not like Robert the magistrate, or Renly the doctor.

He tried not to think what things would be like if he were the magistrate and not Robert –how differently he would have handled the case. He did not dislike his job. It was the family business, it was an honour to continue it, even if Robert and Renly didn’t seem to think so. He’d always been quite pleased with it. It was the kind of job that needed to be done, even if no one wanted to do it. It tended to set him apart from other people, as if he were not quite of the same world as them. He didn’t mind. He was content with being a spectator, with the lack of expectation to affect anyone’s life in any way. But now, for the first time he found himself wanting to intervene in someone’s life, to protect and preserve life.

Stannis stopped to look up at the evening sky, weighing his options. The violet colour was getting darker and darker as the light of day was rapidly diminishing. Even if he set off for Winterfell immediately, by the time he arrived at the farm it would be late for social calls. Was it so urgent for the Starks to know that the Boltons were in fact not considered suspects in the murders of Ned and Arya? Or was he just looking for an excuse to see Sansa again?

He had been walking aimlessly again, when a new thought crossed his mind and made him stop dead in his tracks. Even if the Boltons were not responsible for the murders, someone was. Someone with, possibly, a different physical description than what they had in mind until now. And until they were discovered, the remaining Starks were still in danger. He needed no excuse to go to Winterfell now. This was too serious to wait until morning.

Stannis did not believe in gut feelings, hunches, or any kind of intuition. Yet as he rode to Winterfell, he felt as though he was racing with time, trying to reach his destination before the darkness of night enveloped the world around him completely. He rode as fast as he could, the thought of Sansa fixed in his mind. He wondered how she would react when he broke the news to her. Would she be disappointed to hear that the Boltons were innocent? Would she be surprised at all? He pictured her opening the door of her house, a baffled smile appearing on her sweet face when she’d see him standing at her doorstep, breathing heavily and looking worried for no reason. He pictured her taking his hand, telling him it was alright because no one would see, no one was there to see, and then even being bold enough to steal a kiss before she called her mother and brother in the room. He pictured all this and he wondered – if it really came to pass, would he be strong enough to do the right thing and resist her?

At last, he saw the outlines of the farmhouse and the barn spring up ahead in the dark. It was not too late, but the stars had not come out yet, creating the illusion of a night darker than it ought to be. He was getting closer and closer. Now he was passing through the gate. Now he was crossing the grounds, passing by the sycamore tree that marked the final resting place of half the Stark family. 

It was not until he had reached the house and had halted his horse that he heard the screams piercing through the cool night air. His first thought was, _Sansa._ His second thought, despite Renly’s words, _the Boltons are here._

He jumped off the saddle and sprinted to the front door of the house, the screams ringing in his ears. It was a woman’s voice, but he couldn’t tell if it was Catelyn or Sansa. To his horror, the door was locked. Of course it was – hadn’t he himself advised Sansa to always lock after sunset? He knew well that he couldn’t break the door down. It was made of good, sturdy wood, and he would injure himself before he could cause any serious damage to it.

_Think,_ he told himself, _think._ Then it came to him. The kitchen had a back door, as he had noticed the first time he had ever been in the house, the night of Bran’s death. Even if it was locked, it would be easier to break down. He sprinted to the back of the house, his heart beating wildly. Every second that passed was a second more of Sansa being in grave danger. Once again, he didn’t think of Robb or Catelyn – he was indifferent to their fates. But if anything happened to sweet, beautiful Sansa – anything at all-

He skidded to a halt, almost stumbling into the pile of firewood next to the kitchen door. He realized then that he had no weapon, no means to protect himself or anybody else. He looked around him frantically. There was a tree stump close to the firewood pile, and on it, an axe. He lodged it out forcefully, and rammed his shoulder into the kitchen door. It was unlocked, so he stumbled in and almost fell over someone on the floor. It was Sansa.

He took it all in in one second. Sansa, huddled on the floor, crying and shivering, her hands and lap drenched in blood; Robb’s lifeless body sprawled on the floor, his eyes glassy, his blood still flowing out of him, washing the stone floor; Catelyn also bloody, wailing, screaming, but making no sense. And between mother and daughter on the floor, a bloody kitchen knife.

It all happened very quickly. Catelyn grabbed the knife. For a moment, her incoherent wailing made sense. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” she screeched, and lunged at Sansa. Sansa screamed but instead of trying to move away, she moved towards her mother. Stannis had no time to think. He used the axe’s handle to knock Catelyn out. As the handle connected with her head, Sansa’s hands gripped Catelyn’s and turned the knife towards her. Catelyn fell on the floor, with Sansa on top of her and the knife lodged in her throat. Sansa let out a yelp and moved as far away as she could from her mother. Catelyn spat out blood with a disgusting, gurgling sound. Her eyes were getting foggy, but with the last light remaining in them, she looked at her daughter with the most contemptuous look Stannis had ever seen. Then she let out a shallow breath, and her eyes dimmed completely. 

Catelyn was dead, and Sansa was the only surviving Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot twist! :D


	5. The long night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this sooner, but stuff came up, sorry!

“Is she…?” Sansa said tentatively, looking at her mother’s body as if she expected it to move at any moment.

“She’s dead” Stannis said flatly. He was standing over Catelyn, looking into her dead eyes to make sure she really was gone.

“Oh _gods_ …” Sansa moaned.

“It’s over now” Stannis said hastily. “It’s all over”

“Oh _no_ …” she moaned again. She choked, like she had trouble breathing. “I _killed_ her” she whispered then, her voice struggling to come out.

“It was self-defense. You had no choice, you did nothing wrong” Stannis said quickly.

He looked at her hands, which had once seemed to him like two white doves floating in a sea of black. The doves were now bloody, and huddling close together as if they were scared.

“I killed my mother!” Sansa moaned. She didn’t seem to have heard a word of what he had said.

“You had no choice” Stannis repeated thickly. The smell of fresh blood was overwhelming. He was familiar with the smell of death, but this, this was quite different. This was too recent, too raw.

“I think I’m going to be sick” Sansa said tremulously.

He wasn’t surprised. Her breaths were shallow and uneven all this time. He helped her up, and together they stepped outside, where they were greeted by the cool night air. Sansa collapsed on the ground after a couple of steps, making loud retching noises. He stood by her side, feeling glad for the scent of pines in the air that slowly wiped the smell of blood from his nostrils. Sansa’s retching sounds eventually stopped. Nothing had come out of her. Her stomach was stronger than she thought.

“Sansa, I need to know if you’re hurt” Stannis said then, looking worriedly at her blood-soaked clothes, and berating himself for not having checked sooner. What if it wasn’t just Robb’s blood?

She didn’t respond. She stayed crouched on the ground, her hands digging in the dirt as if she was trying to draw strength from the earth.

“Sansa”

Still no response.

“Sansa” Stannis said again, now more commandingly. He kneeled on the ground next to her, took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “Are you hurt? This is important, I must know. Are you in pain? Did Catelyn harm you? Or – or Robb?”

Her blurry eyes finally focused on him. He thought he saw a light flicker in them, as though she had finally recognized him.

“No, I’m not hurt” she said faintly.

“Good, good” Stannis said, a wave of incredible relief washing over him. His hands were still cupping Sansa’s face. He felt her sticky, trembling hand touching his. He thought of Catelyn’s bloody hands. Small hands, a woman’s hands. Renly had been proven right in the worst possible way.

He let her face go and she looked away.

“Good is a terrible word” she said. She started crying again, first so quietly that Stannis hardly noticed, then with loud, uncontrollable sobs that made her thin frame shake like a sapling in the wind.

“Sansa” he said. He didn’t know what to say to her. He hardly knew what had happened. Everything he had thought about the events at Winterfell had proven to be wrong.

“Sansa” he said again. It was no good. She gave no sign that she had heard him. She just cried and cried, the wails jumping forcefully out of her throat. He shuffled closer to her, trying to get her attention. No matter how great her anguish, they needed to leave, to go back to town.

“Sansa” Stannis said for the third time. He touched her shoulder gingerly, hoping he wouldn’t scare her. He wanted to give her comfort, but he didn’t know how. She seemed to know better than him. The moment he touched her, she finally turned to him and flung her arms around his neck, holding him tight. He wrapped his arms around her delicate waist and held her trembling form close to him, for once without hesitation. Propriety be damned, she needed him. Here and now, social conventions seemed insignificant and surreal. All that mattered was that she needed him, and he could give her some warmth and comfort. So he held her tight, let his body absorb her violent shivers, let her tears wet his collar. As if of its own volition, his hand went to her head, petting her silky hair. It was so odd, to experience something so sweet in such a bitter moment.

“We need to go” he said eventually, when her sobs had subsided. He knew they had to get back to town as quickly as possible, but there was a part of him who wished to stay there forever, with Sansa in his arms.

She untangled herself from his arms obediently, and he saw her dirty hands flying to her face before stopping mid-air. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but couldn’t. You don’t wipe tears with blood.

“Here” he said, and brushed his thumbs on her delicate skin, wiping her tears for her.

“Thank you” she whispered, and he knew it wasn’t just for this little help.

The ride back to town was slower than he would have liked, but there was no helping it. It was pitch black now, and the horse had to carry two people instead of one. Sansa was in no condition to ride a horse on her own, and a cart would be slower than one horse carrying the two of them. Though it didn’t make much difference, Stannis had made Sansa sit in front of him, subconsciously hoping to protect her with his own body. Her thin frame was leaning against him now, her shoulders jabbing in his chest with every move the horse made. The wind carried the smell of the congealed blood from Sansa’s dress to Stannis’s nostrils. It was as if they carried death with them, even though they had left the bodies behind.

They didn’t talk, and he had plenty of time to think, thoughts whirling past him faster than the dark scenery around them. As mad as it seemed, there now could be only one explanation about the events at Winterfell. Catelyn Stark must have killed Robb, her firstborn, her first son, and then she had tried to kill Sansa, her first daughter, her only living child. What made a mother kill her children? Had she simply gone mad? She had seemed so attached to Robb… Sansa had been forced to do all the funeral preparations because her mother wouldn’t let Robb leave her side… How could she kill him? And yet she had. And did that mean that she had killed, Arya, and Rickon, and her husband too? If yes, why? Stannis truly couldn’t fathom why. He remembered Robert telling him, after Ned’s death, that sometimes ignorance was preferable to knowledge. He still disagreed, but he could see his brother’s point a little better. The reveal of the killer had brought him no peace of mind. Instead, his stomach was in a knot and his head ready to explode with questions birthed by one, horrifying answer.

He rode straight to Renly’s practice. The dead could wait, but Sansa was alive, and she needed care. He helped her off the horse and banged on his brother’s door, not caring about the racket he was making.

“What happened?” Renly asked when he opened the door, his face turning ghostly pale at the sight of Sansa.

“Let us in, will you?” Stannis said impatiently, walking past Renly with Sansa by his side. 

He led her upstairs in Renly’s office. The room looked even barer than before. Renly must have stayed up packing. Stannis had the fleeting thought that his brother couldn’t wait to leave town, and for the first time he found he really couldn’t blame him.

“What happened?” Renly hissed from the door. He had followed Stannis and Sansa upstairs.

“Sit here for a moment” Stannis said to Sansa and led her to a chair. She did as she was told. She had grown very quiet during their ride to town, and Stannis found that more disconcerting than her uncontrollable sobs.

He stepped out on the landing with Renly and closed the office door behind him. He didn’t want Sansa to hear.

“Robb is dead. Catelyn killed him, I think – I can’t be sure. She is dead now too. She tried to kill Sansa, but she got killed instead” Stannis said quickly. Renly gaped at him.

_“Catelyn Stark?”_ he managed eventually.

“Yes. It seems you were right after all” Stannis said. “When you talked about small hands, and about Ned’s injuries being caused by someone slighter than the average man” he added when he saw that Renly wasn’t following him.

“I can’t believe it” Renly whispered, after several moments of baffled silence.

“It doesn’t matter right now” Stannis said impatiently. “Look, we need to tell Robert and then we need to get up at the farm again, but first, can you check on Sansa? She says she’s not hurt, but she’s in shock”

“Yes, yes, of course” Renly said with a start, suddenly remembering that he was a doctor. He made for his study’s door, but he hesitated for a moment. “Catelyn… did you…?”

“No. It was Sansa, in self-defense” Stannis said. He wished it had been him though. He wished he would have killed Catelyn for all the pain and anguish she had caused Sansa, and now she was dead, he wished he could have killed her all over again.

//

“Stab wounds in the stomach and chest. Deadly, but not particularly deep” Renly said, his voice muffled from the handkerchief he held over his mouth.

“I can’t believe it” Robert said for the umpteenth time, shaking his head. “It can’t be true”

“Are you blind?” Stannis said curtly, motioning to the bodies of Robb and Catelyn on the kitchen floor.

He had no patience for Robert’s sensitivities. It was turning into a rather long night. He had gone to Robert to bring him the news while Renly was tending to Sansa. He practically had to drag his disbelieving older brother back to Renly’s practice to show him the state Sansa was in. He had left him there, absorbing the new reality and went to the Seaworths. He needed Davos to come up at the farm with him and his brothers, and he needed his wife Marya to stay with Sansa while they were away, and also give the girl a clean dress to wear. By the time the party had reached the farm, it was past midnight.

“I don’t know what to think – who killed who? Did Catelyn kill Robb? Did Sansa kill him too in self-defence?” Robert wondered aloud.

“Sansa didn’t say anything about killing Robb” Stannis said, remembering how shocked Sansa had been that she had killed her own mother. Wouldn’t she have mentioned Robb if he had died by her hand too?

“So it was Catelyn all along? It’s simply unbelievable” Robert insisted. “Why would she do that? She loved her children! She loved Ned!”

“Renly?” Stannis said. He was standing outside the kitchen while his two brothers were inside, Renly examining the bodies with a look of great discomfort on his face, and Robert being ineffectual and stepping in the congealed, blackened blood every so often.

Renly drew himself up, finally removing the handkerchief from his face.

“I’ve already told you how she did it, but you can’t expect me to know why” he said.

“If she did it, she must have been mad. There’s no other explanation” Robert said.

“You knew her better than us. Had you noticed anything lately?” Stannis asked him immediately.

“I… no. She was sad, very sad. A little distracted maybe. But I didn’t… she didn’t….” Robert mumbled. 

“Could she have gone mad?” Stannis asked Renly, who had now stepped outside in search of some fresh air.

“I’m a physician, Stannis, not a psychiatrist. I don’t know much about those things” Renly said cautiously.

“You know more than the rest of us put together” Davos said, returning from the stable where Stannis had sent him to prepare the cart that would carry the bodies of Robb and Catelyn back into town.

“Well then” Renly said, grimacing a little to show that he didn’t like being pressured. “I suppose it is always within the realm of possibilities that she lost her mind for one reason or other. Perhaps Bran’s death was so traumatic that she couldn’t recover from it” he ventured uncertainly.

“Or it was just life” Davos said calmly. “Maybe she just snapped”

There was silence as everyone contemplated what he had said. It wasn’t impossible, Stannis thought. It happened sometimes. Life in the farms could be quite hard at times, and many women couldn’t handle living out there. Harsh weather conditions, a series of bad crops, starvation, alienation, children dying… It didn’t take more than that for a woman to snap. Of course, most of them didn’t go on a killing spree, even if they lost their minds.

“It could be” Renly said.

“It could be” Stannis repeated. It could be that simple and that inexplicable, as madness often was.

“I don’t understand why we waste our time here, coming up with our own ideas instead of going back to town and asking Sansa about it. She must have noticed if something was wrong with her mother, and she was here tonight! She saw what happened!” Robert said.

“Sansa is in shock. Do you really think she needs to be put through this ordeal right now?” Stannis said coolly.

“Not to mention that she is probably unconscious now. I gave her something for her nerves” Renly added.

“I’m just trying to sort out this mess” Robert said gruffly.

But what was there to sort out? Stannis wondered. A whole family had been eradicated. Three small children had died tragically. Only one young woman had survived, and she would be mourning her dead for the rest of her life. Even if Robert were the best magistrate in the world, there was nothing he could do about this.

//

They brought the bodies back to the morgue, after Davos and Stannis had cleaned the blood from the kitchen floor as best as they could. Robert went back to his house, saying that he had to write a report, though it would be incomplete without Sansa’s testimony.

Stannis, Renly and Davos returned to the practice, where they found a tired-looking Marya looking over a sleeping Sansa in Renly’s office.

“She’s been sleeping ever since you left” Marya said in a low voice, looking caringly at Sansa.

“Good, that’s exactly what she needs now” Renly said. “Though I don’t think she should spend the rest of the night curled up in a chair”

“We could take her to our home, but I’m not sure what she will be like when she wakes up. We have small children and I don’t want them scared” Davos said thoughtfully, and Marya nodded sadly. 

“No, she should probably stay here so I can keep an eye on her through the night” Renly said, rubbing his eyes. “I have a spare room; it’s not much, but it should do… And from tomorrow we’ll see where she will stay. Robert might want her to go stay with him, seeing as he was a friend of the family”

“Yes, so that he can be tactless and interrogate her” Stannis murmured. 

“We’ll sort it out tomorrow. Now, we need to move her in the spare room” Renly said tiredly.

Nobody moved. Stannis looked up. Renly was looking at him a little impatiently.

“Right” Stannis said, feeling his heart beating a little faster. 

He approached the chair where Sansa was sleeping. She was in one of Marya’s dresses, and though she was curled up, he could see that it was several sizes too big for her. Her hair was falling over her face, but through the strands of red he could see that her features were calm in the oblivion of sleep. He hesitated for a moment, then picked her up as carefully as he could. She felt heavier than when he had lifted her on the back of his horse. She was like dead weight now. Her arms and legs were hanging limply, but her head came to rest on his shoulder. He could still smell the blood on her, though it was much fainter now. He wondered if we would ever get to smell the scent of lilacs again, or if it was lost forever. Still, there was something surprisingly comforting about the weight of her body in his arms.

He carried her to the spare room, and Marya followed him like some kind of eagle-eyed chaperone. She helped him lay Sansa on the bed, and then with motherly care she tucked the young woman in as if she were the daughter she never had.

“Poor soul. She has hard days ahead of her” Marya said sympathetically as she pushed away the strands of hair from Sansa’s face.

“She is an exceptionally strong young woman” Stannis said, and somewhere in the middle of the sentence he realized that he was reminding himself as much as he was informing Marya.

“She was asking for you” Marya said quietly.

“What?”

“After you all left for the farm. It took some time for the doctor’s medicine to work. She was asking for you, saying that she only felt safe by your side” Marya said. Stannis looked up at her. Marya was peering at him, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“She trusts me, that’s all” Stannis said, the same words he had used on Robert a few days ago.

“Well then. We should let her rest” Marya said, and left the room. 

Stannis was left alone with Sansa for a few moments. He looked at her, calm and beautiful in sleep. There had been so much to be done, that until now he hadn’t gotten the chance to stop and think that Sansa could have been lost to him this night. If he had been a few moments late… If he hadn’t hit Catelyn quickly enough or if Sansa’s hands hadn’t been strong enough… He tried to cast the image of Sansa’s lifeless, bloody form out of his mind. Here she was, alive and well, looking serene and innocent in her sleep. And she was safe, completely safe. The thought that she felt safe with _him_ filled him with warmth. There was something really touching about another human placing their trust in you so wholeheartedly. 

He heard the floorboards creak outside. He had to go. He hesitated for a moment; So far he had refrained from making Sansa any promises, fearing they might fall through. But now he couldn’t resist – he couldn’t leave her without promising her that from now on, he wouldn’t let anyone or anything harm her. He sealed his promise with a quick, chaste kiss on her smooth brow and left the room.


	6. Cherry wood again

The news about the deaths up in Winterfell farm had spread like wildfire by the next morning, though Stannis was not sure how that had been possible. People had initially been rather disappointed by the revelation that there was no ghost in Winterfell, just a seemingly deranged woman. But then, the horrible reality of a mother killing her children and husband in such gruesome ways was too hard to stomach, and thus the supernatural element returned to present a solution. By midday, the whole town had agreed that Catelyn had been possessed by evil spirits to do those foul deeds. 

There was almost something gleeful in the way people discussed the gruesome details of the whole affair, Stannis thought with disgust. He could not understand their fascination, even if it was simultaneously mixed with repulsion. They had not seen the blood, they had not heard Catelyn’s screams. They had not held a crying girl that had to kill her mother to save herself.

Stannis pressed his palms on his eyes. He was in the funeral parlour, and it was only midday, but he felt exhausted. He hadn’t slept a wink last night. He had lay awake on his bed, watching the night sky outside his window change from inky black to indigo blue, and trying to remember as many details as he could about the few times he had seen Catelyn.

He pictured her by Bran’s deathbed. She had seemed distraught then, and incredibly disturbed by the presence of Stannis in the house. Had she blamed him at all for her son’s death? Had she thought he’d brought them bad luck? It was possible, perhaps almost certain. He pictured her at the funeral, latched on Robb, rivers of endless tears streaking her cheeks. He had seen her in Ned’s funeral next, mad with grief at the death of her husband. But had she really been? Was she pretending? Was it possible that she could have regretted her actions and was genuinely sad? But if that were true, why had she gone on to kill her children? Could she possibly think their deaths necessary, but still be saddened by them? He remembered her in Rickon and Arya’s funeral. She had not been crying then. On the contrary, she was unresponsive, almost like a sleepwalker. Had she got the hang of it by then? Had the madness settled in completely? Last night, she really had seemed mad to him, screaming at Sansa that she would kill her. And that last look in her eyes, that look of utter contempt for her own daughter…

“Hello” someone said softly.

Stannis looked up immediately. He knew that voice, and loved it more than any other sound in the world. Sansa had entered the parlour without making a sound and was now standing in front of his desk. She was still in Marya’s oversized grey dress, but her hands and face were clean, and her hair was brushed and pulled back in a bun.

“Hello” Stannis said. His initial reaction was to ask her what she was doing there, but even he could sense the question would come off as rude no matter how he phrased it.

“May I?” Sansa said politely, and sat on her chair –he had come to think of it as her chair because she had occupied it so often in the last few weeks- opposite to him.

“I didn’t expect that you would… er, get out of bed today” Stannis admitted. Again, he hadn’t said what he wanted. He wanted to ask her how she was, but it sounded awfully stupid even in his head.

“I know” Sansa sighed. Her eyes were sad, and so was her mouth. But despite her apparent sorrow, there was a sort of calmness about her that Stannis had not seen before. All the other times she had come to him, there was a sense of urgency or desperation about her. But now she was sitting quietly, the two white doves once again calm in her dark lap, the picture of dignity even in her sadness. Was it because she knew there were no more deaths to fear, that she was finally safe? Stannis couldn’t tell.

“I would come to you earlier, but your brother the magistrate was asking me questions all morning” Sansa said then.

“Oh” Stannis said. He went quiet then, hoping that Sansa might tell him what she had told Robert, hoping that she would clear up his own assumptions about the night before.

But Sansa didn’t say a word, and he didn’t dare ask her directly for fear he might upset her.

“I’m sorry about Robert. I hope he wasn’t too tactless” he said instead eventually.

“It is alright. He has to know what happened. It’s his job” Sansa said. “Then Mrs. Seaworth was fussing over me,” she went on, skipping the subject of her statement to Robert completely, “and it took me quite a long time to convince your brother the doctor that it wouldn’t hurt me to walk two doors down to come and see you”

“Why… why did you want to see me?” Stannis asked. He felt his throat going dry. He couldn’t imagine what Sansa might want of him.

“To arrange the funeral of my brother and mother” Sansa said calmly.

Stannis gaped at her.

“It doesn’t need to be done now” he said when he had collected himself. “It can wait”

“No. I’d rather we arranged it now. I need this to be over. I need to put it past me” Sansa said, her lips curling down a bit more.

“It will take time” Stannis said.

Sansa looked at him with soft eyes that told him she knew better than him how long this journey through sorrow would take her. He didn’t think to contradict her.

“What would you like to do then?” he asked, complying with her wishes. He wondered whether talking about practical matters gave Sansa a semblance of normalcy. Perhaps this was the only way she knew to deal with the loss of a dear one. That was what she had done until now – the day after she’d lose someone, she’d come to him to arrange the funeral. It was –and maybe _he_ was too- the only constant in her unpredictable life.

“I’d like the funeral to be held soon, provided the magistrate does not object to that. I’d like cherry wood for both caskets. And I want them to be buried in Winterfell, next to my father and siblings” Sansa said.

Stannis stopped taking down notes and looked up at Sansa in surprise.

“Your mother too?” he asked.

“Yes, my mother too” Sansa replied calmly.

Stannis hesitated. He didn’t quite know how to say what he was thinking. Sansa spared him the trouble.

“She was our mother. I _must_ believe that she loved us, despite everything. She _must_ have loved my father too” she said sadly, a hint of defiance in her voice.

Stannis thought of Catelyn’s dying eyes, the hateful look she cast at Sansa. Was that love? He said nothing. In his experience, people dealt with grief and tragedy in different ways. It seemed that Sansa’s way was reconciliation, perhaps even forgiveness.

He looked down at his paper. Cherry wood, he had written. The first one to go, Bran, was also buried in that. It was almost like Sansa was closing a circle. He looked up at her again. He could not agree with her, or even fully understand her decisions. He thought of Robert and Renly. He wasn’t particularly close with either of them, but if someone caused them any harm, he would seek revenge, and hate that person forever. Still, he admired Sansa. He had never met someone as kind, generous and forgiving as her. He had thought her very strong from the start, and now he wondered if that was where her strength lay. Would it be kindness and forgiveness that would let her go on living, when everyone she had loved was dead?

“About the cost…” Sansa started saying then.

“There will be no talk of it” Stannis said firmly. It was the least he could do.

Sansa looked at him, at his desk, at the bland room around them.

“I will never have to do this again” she said then.

Stannis couldn’t tell if she considered this a happy thought or a sad one. He wasn’t sure what he thought of it either. From now on, their roads would be separate.

//

“She said it was Catelyn. She had gone outside to lock the hens in the hen house last night, then on her way back she heard Robb scream. She went in to see what was going on, only to find that their mother had stabbed him. She said she didn’t know – about Catelyn. She said she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary – well, if mourning can be considered the ordinary”

“And the others? Was that Catelyn too?”

“Sansa doesn’t know about the others. But Robert assumes it was Catelyn”

Renly had dropped by the funeral parlour later in the day, long after Sansa had left, conveying to Stannis what he had overheard (or rather, intentionally eavesdropped) during Sansa’s statement to Robert that same morning. Stannis was listening carefully. Despite his curiosity, he had refrained from asking Sansa any painful questions.

“She said she blames herself for not noticing anything” Renly went on.

“She shouldn’t” Stannis said immediately.

“No. She’s just a girl. She did her best at a difficult time” Renly said, and Stannis nodded. For once, he agreed with his brother wholeheartedly.

There was silence for a few moments. Then Renly spoke again, his voice tinted with uncertainty.

“Should _we_ have known? Should we have noticed?”

Stannis exhaled through his nose. He had been asking himself the same question all night long, and all through the day. 

“I barely knew Catelyn. I only went up to the farm for the funerals and I barely saw her even then. Even if she were acting differently, I wouldn’t know it” he said eventually.

“I didn’t know her much either” Renly said. “But I went up to the farm to examine Rickon. Stannis… I should have listened to you. I should have checked for poison”

“Rickon died the same day I told you about my suspicions” Stannis said quickly. “There’s no reason to beat yourself over it. It was too late already”

He wished he had thought of the possibility of poisoning earlier. But how could he have known? How could he have suspected anything? He had only found out about the boy’s mysterious sickness a few hours before his death.

Wasn’t it terrible? He had only found out about his sickness by chance, because he had run into Sansa. And she had broken down and cried in his arms, as if she had nobody else to share her weight with. It was the truth too. Sansa had nobody. She had gone through it all alone.

“I should have checked for poisoning anyway. I should have thought of it when no illness seemed to match his symptoms” Renly said quietly.

_Yes, you should have. Perhaps we could have saved the little boy. Perhaps Sansa wouldn’t be all alone in the world now,_ Stannis thought immediately, but said nothing.

“Do you think I killed him?” Renly asked then, his eyes round and scared.

Stannis looked at his brother. He was pale, with dark circles under his eyes that betrayed the sleeplessness of the previous night. His face was guilt-ridden. Stannis wondered if Robert had slept at all either.

“No. Most likely, his mother did” he said firmly. 

_But you should have checked. You should have been better. Robert should have been better too. We should all have been._

//

The funeral was held two days later. It was a chilly, sunny day, the occasional gust of wind making the leaves of the sycamore tree rustle somberly. A fair amount of people had shown up for the funeral. They had supposedly shown up to pay their respects to Robb, but Stannis had the suspicion that at least a few of them had come to witness the peculiarity of a murderess being buried next to her victims.

Sansa stood by herself, once again in her own clothes of mourning. Her face was pale, her expression sorrowful. Her eyes were wet, but she shed no tears throughout the service. She gave people the faintest smile as a way of thanking them for paying their respects, but barely spoke at all.

Stannis stayed after the end of the service, but didn’t follow the others in the house. Instead, he walked around the premises, like he had done after the funeral of Arya and Rickon. To his surprise, he found Sansa standing near the farm’s well, looking at its depths.

“I thought you’d be in the house with the others” he said instead of any kind of greeting.

“I can’t bear to be among them” Sansa said, shaking her beautiful head tiredly.

“I could leave” Stannis said, though he thoroughly disliked the idea of living Sansa alone, staring down a well.

“No, please stay” Sansa said immediately. “You’re not like them. They say they came to pay their respects, but they only came to see the place where so many terrible things happened, see if it’s really haunted. Easy to be here in the light of day. None of them would dare stay here after dark and see if the place really is cursed” Sansa said in disgust.

“Do you think it is?” Stannis asked curiously. Sansa had never expressed a clear opinion about all the rumors going around.

She looked up to him, her blue eyes clear and piercing.

“You mean if I think my mother committed all these heinous crimes under the influence of evil spirits?” she asked, her voice measured. Stannis nodded. There was no way tiptoeing around this now he had asked.

“No, I don’t think so” she said then, looking back into the depths of the well in front of her. “I suppose it’s easier for people to believe this, that this was something beyond her or anybody else’s powers, but I don’t. If she was mad, I don’t know what caused her madness”

He nodded lightly. Somehow it was a relief to know that Sansa did not subscribe to everyone else’s demented beliefs. She paid no attention to him, still staring at the depths in front of her.

“Shall we walk?” he suggested. He felt the urgent need to take Sansa away from that well.

She smiled wanly, and finally moved away.

They walked in silence for a little while, with Stannis guiltily enjoying the sensation of Sansa’s body in such close proximity to his. He had not offered his arm to her, but she had taken it anyway, as if she had appointed him as her support in this time of sadness.

“The notary read me my parents’ will yesterday” Sansa said eventually. “I am to inherit everything”

“That is good” Stannis said.

“No” she said sadly. “I don’t want any of it”

“But it’s your home”

“Not anymore”

“I thought you would return here, eventually”

“I can’t. This place is full of ghosts. I cannot go in that thicket over there because my father died there. I cannot go in my parents’ bedroom because Bran died there. I cannot go in the boys’ bedroom because Rickon died there. I cannot go in the kitchen…”

Her voice died, drowning in the memory of that last, fateful night. Stannis thought he felt her shiver next to him. He had the overwhelming urge to pull her close to him, but he managed to control himself.

“What will you do then?” he asked. “Renly will be leaving town soon. Where will you stay?”

“Your brother the magistrate wants me to go live with him” Sansa said.

“I expect he feels he owes it to your father to take care of you”

“I think he feels guilty” Sansa said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Stannis hummed. He thought so too, and a part of him admired her for her acute observation. Another part of him was becoming aware of the fact that he was the only person with whom she would share a thought like that.

“I don’t want to stay with him” Sansa said then. Something in her tone made Stannis think that she hadn’t said that to anyone else either.

He hummed again. He couldn’t blame her. He had grown up with Robert, and he knew well that he wasn’t always the most pleasant of companies. Next to him Sansa took a deep breath.

“I wondered if I could stay with you”

He stopped dead in his tracks, unwittingly untangling himself from her.

“Me?” he said in astonishment.

“Yes”

He felt the air getting knocked out of his lungs. This was a turn of events he had not predicted. He thought his and Sansa’s ways would now inevitably part instead of getting more closely entwined.

“I’m afraid it would be-”

“Improper?” Sansa finished his sentence calmly. He would have smiled at how well she knew him, how easily she could read his thoughts, if the matter wasn’t so serious. “I don’t think so. You are well-respected. I am, in the present situation, beyond reproach and scrutiny”

“Still. People will talk”

“People always talk”

“They can be very cruel, even to those who deserve it the least” Stannis insisted.

“Don’t speak to me of cruelty. I know cruelty” Sansa said harshly, her eyes momentarily cold. “I do not care about people’s gossips. They have already insulted the memory of my family. They cannot do any more harm to me” she added a little more calmly.

“I live above the funeral parlour. There’s hardly any space” Stannis said then, still trying to dissuade her while struggling to keep his mind from running wild with the possibility of living under the same roof with Sansa.

“We’ll make do” Sansa said with a soft smile.

“It cannot be” he said heavily.

He thought of her hands in his, of the warmth of her slender body against his, of her soft lips claiming his. Whatever she said, this was dangerous. Could he trust her? And most importantly, could he trust himself? 

“Please, Mr. Baratheon” Sansa said pleadingly.

_Mr. Baratheon._ Not Stannis, as if she knew what his concerns were, and was trying to put him at ease.

“It will only be for a while. Until I stand on my own two feet. Until I figure out what to do”

She had been asking for him a few nights ago, when he had returned to the farm with his brothers and Davos. _She only felt safe by your side,_ Marya had said.

“Please”

_She trusts me,_ he had said to Marya then and to Robert before. And how wonderful it felt to be trusted by her, to be of assistance to her, to be needed by her. 

He looked into her blue eyes, imploring and a little watery again. The fight was lost. Perhaps it had been lost before it had even begun, the moment she had set her mind to it. It made no difference. Despite his qualms and his better judgment, he could not bring himself to turn her away.

“Well then. You can stay with me for a while” he relented.

At the sound of his words her face lit up, the first true smile he had ever seen on her parting her rosy lips. It occurred to him that he had only met her in sorrow, that he had never known her happy. And now, happiness was like a sun that shone through thin cracks on the mask of sorrow she had been donning for so long. It was simultaneously the saddest and most joyful thing he had seen. 

And who was he to take her happiness away?


End file.
